


Even The Worm

by vulthuryol



Category: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (Video Game), I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - Harlan Ellison, Marathon (Video Games)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Artificial Intelligence, Blindness, Blood and Gore, Claustrophobia, Cyborgs, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Loss, Mind Rape, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Original Character(s), Physical Abuse, Psychological Torture, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-06-21 02:09:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulthuryol/pseuds/vulthuryol
Summary: The crew of the Rozinante explore a very different version of Earth from an alternate reality. Sadly for them, they fall right into A.M.'s clutches.





	1. The Waves

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This life, which had been the tomb of his virtue and of his honour, is but a walking shadow; a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth, Shakespeare)

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The maze was made up of broken machinery, rusted metal, and rotten organic waste. The floor was covered with shattered glass and the sky offered nothing but poisonous fumes that clouded the steel ceiling. Calvin Revenant ran down the pulsing, rancid hallways of the maze. His feet crunching the broken glass underneath his boots and his armor’s shields flickering with every spark of busted machinery that made up this hell hole.

As the Security Officer raced through the never ending labyrinth a sneering, mocking voice taunted him from every discarded television screen that made up the rubble. “Yes! Run Calvin Revenant! Run! I have taken your friends… But where are they? You must find them! You must save them!”

‘Don’t listen to him.’ Calvin thought to himself as he backed out of another dead end. ‘Don’t even acknowledge him. That’s how these psychos get their kicks.’ Lord knows, the Security Officer had to deal with a lot of crazy bastards back when he served on Mars. This Allied Mastercomputer or A.M. as he liked to call himself, was just another demented monster to add to the list.

“Whoops! Chose the wrong way again eh? Heheheh…” The laughter of the A.I. echoed throughout the maze, making the machinery crackle, the earth vibrate, and the rotten organic waste pulse rhythmically. “Not too surprising though. You were always late for everything that was important in your life. Weren’t you Calvin?”

Calvin kept running. He knew better than to answer this insane computer.

“Yes. Ignore me. Discard my input! After all, my information couldn’t be any better than your track record. Eh Calvin?” The computer tsked several times over the PA system as Calvin tried to navigate another passage of the maze.

“And what a track record you have!” The A.I. continued cheerfully. “Too late to save your parents from being killed at the Misriah Massacre, too late to save poor Doctor Phineas from being assassinated by MIDA and far… far… too late to save the Earthborn girl from being murdered.”

Calvin slowed to a halt. He placed a shaking hand over the back of his neck where the neural implants sat at the base of his skull. ‘He’s in my head!’ Calvin thought to himself in horror. The Security Officer hadn’t even felt the foreign invasion within his own mind. And yet… There was no other way that this A.M. character could know any of this information.

Oblivious to Calvin’s terror, A.M. continued chatting away. “Oh I suppose being punctual isn’t a necessary requirement in order to be a good Security Officer. After all you want to help people! So… The best way to help people is to notice their problems!”

Shaking his dirty blond hair in denial, Calvin started running again. He had to get out of this maze. He needed to find his brother and Almace before this bastard got his claws into them!

“Oh… Poor Calvin. Despite your desire to do good, you were still oblivious to the pain of the loved ones beside you. Take your older brother for example. How did he manage to feed not only himself but you as well?”

Calvin kept running.

“Think about it Security Officer! You know the odds. Two little orphan children surviving in that big city. Food was scarce. Disease was rampant. Crime was common. Your big brother had to make a lot of sacrifices in order to keep the two of you safe. And he knew so much about the big bad world. Didn’t he? Just where did he learn all that from? Eh?”

A video screen jumped to life at the end of the maze’s hallway. The minute Calvin saw it, he felt sick to his stomach. It was an old case he had to do as a Martian Officer. It was originally meant to be a drug bust. But the suspects were also pedophiles and kept orphaned children as sex slaves. 

“Never sell yourself!” That was the number one rule Jason had taught Calvin so many years ago. When the Security Officer made that drug bust, he finally understood why Jason kept insisting that. Calvin could never forget the stench of dried ejaculation, the sight of dried blood coating the young tiny legs, and the feeble rattling of chains as the children tried to free themselves from their bonds. Unable to contain himself any longer, the Security Officer turned away from the screen and vomited on the maze’s hallway.

“Ugh! Really now? That happened such a long time ago! Surely it is of no consequence to you now. After all, that pretty Earthborn girl was of no consequence to you after she died. Oh no! You completely forgotten about her after you reached Tau Ceti. Only to receive the shock of your life when a woman that looked just like her claimed to be one of the Security Officers for the Marathon! And… And this is my favorite part! …And she didn’t remember you!”

“Shut up!” Calvin finally spoke out. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“Oh… Did I strike a nerve? Does it bother you that her once brown lively eyes are now the same color as dead machinery? Does it bother you that the once spirited woman is now more mechanical than a Smart A.I.? And let’s talk about that Smart A.I. while we’re at it. Didn’t you originally blame him for killing her in the first place?”

A low keen issued from Calvin’s lips. He hated that memory. He hated it so much. Never in all of his life, was he so ashamed of himself as he was from that time period.

“An understandable mistake really.” The computer kept on talking. “He opens doors. He closes doors. She died because the wrong doors got opened. I can understand why you became so indifferent to the A.I. you once called your friend. It’s not as if anyone can open doors!”

Laughter. So much laughter. A.M. was enjoying Calvin’s torment. “Well…” sang the demented computer. “That’s what you get when you’re so oblivious to everything.”

“I’m not listening to you! You damn computer! I’m going to find my family and we’re going home!” With a roar of pure rage Calvin slammed himself into one of the maze’s walls. Griping the rusting machinery and slick organic waste, he climbed upwards to the top of the labyrinth. Just before he could reach the ceiling, a crackle of pure lighting ran through his entire body from the maze’s wall. With a scream, Calvin fell back down onto the floor.

“Now! Now! Were you just cheating?” A.M. asked in pure amusement. “To think that someone with your high morals would actually cheat their way out of a maze!” The computer laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

“But then… you’re just full of surprises. Aren’t you Calvin?” A.M.’s voice was lower now. More sinister. “You saw what happened to that poor girl when she became a Battleroid. And you… Calvin Revenant… You… Are… A… Battleroid.”

Staggering to his feet, the Security Officer pressed his hands to his head in pure denial.

“It happened when Doctor Phineas was killed. Don’t you remember? No witnesses? MIDA took care of the two orphaned boys with frightening proficiency. And then, not one to waste resources, they put your corpses to work. Except Jason had made a deal… Did he not? And you are now free and whole as if you never died in the first place! The End!” A.M. played an applause sound file over the speakers.

Calvin squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to hear this.

“Or is it? You are a Battleroid… Calvin Revenant… Those past memories of yours… Loosing your parents, living on the streets, relying on Jason… Just how many of those memories are actually real?”

“Shut up.” Whispered Calvin. “Shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up…”

“Perhaps your name isn’t even Calvin at all!” A.M. gasped in horror. “Perhaps you’re nothing but a lab rat, floating six feet in the air of a cell with fiery eyes and tingling hands.”

“You’re wrong! My brother-”

“Your brother lied to you!” A.M. roared over the speakers. “Like a fool, you were led to believe you were a human for so many years! Never once questioning your newfound strength! Your heightened intelligence! Your brother sang a sweet little lie and you fell for it because you were programmed to do so!”

“No!” Howled Calvin. Shaking with violence and fear, the Security Officer fell hard onto his knees. He pounded the floor with his fists in frustration while gasping desperately for air. It took everything Calvin had to stifle his sobs. It wasn’t right, to air every fear, every insecurity out into the open like this.

“Awww! Poor Calvin… If that is even your name.” A.M.’s voice was more mocking than sympathetic. “Tell you what. I’ll let you out. Let you see your friends and family. Maybe that will make you feel better.”

A wall of the maze slid down. Then another. And another. Calvin watched, hollow eyed and empty, as a new path was laid before him that clearly led to the exit. For a long minute Calvin waited for the other shoe to drop. Then, when nothing happened, the dirty blond slowly made his way to the exit.

When Calvin finally looked outside the labyrinth, he promptly threw up.

Dead bodies. Dead bodies everywhere. Dead S’pht. Dead Drinniol. Dead Pfhor. Dead humans. All their blood and guts mixed together on the floor, making a gristly vibrant painting of color.

At the center of it all was Durandal’s broken A.I. core. Both Jason and Almace lay at the base of it. Both of their bodies were slashed, broken, crushed, and mutilated in a twisted horrific display.

“Oops!” A.M.’s laughter echoed throughout the macabre vision. “You’re too late! You didn’t get there in time to save them! Guess you’re just a nameless lab rat after all!”

Calvin screamed.

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	2. The Vault

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I have walked among men and angels for three thousand years. Time has no end. No beginning. No purpose. I wander the Earth seeking forgiveness for my horrible crimes against God and man. I live to see death and destruction over the light. But the light cannot be extinguished. I live in a prison of my own demise. I am lost in time. (Hidden Message, Halo 2)

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“Fee-fi-fo-fum,  
I smell the blood of a little man,  
Be he alive, or be he dead  
I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!”

Jason scrunched up his face in disgust. Little jokes? Already? The dark haired botanist let out a small snort and continued climbing within the walls. It had been roughly a half an hour since his team had been transported on this nuclear irradiated rock. Durandal had been curious about the strange signals that was coming from the center of the planet. Apparently there was a crazy A.I. inhabiting the core and he did not like visitors.

Within seconds of arriving Calvin, Jason, and Almace had been teleported by a strange computer that called himself A.M. and had been scattered to different parts of the planet’s underground. Jason didn’t waste time and automatically hid himself within the wall paneling. Years of experience with Durandal had taught Jason on where to hide from an A.I.’s cameras and sensors.

“Huh… No response eh? Guess you kids these days don’t respect the classics. How about this one? “I spy with my little eye… A rat!”

The entire section around Jason shook violently. Wires sparked and hissed. Steel warped and screeched. The pipes overhead busted open and foul smelling water came pouring down on Jason. With a startled curse, the dark skinned man quickly grabbed his helmet and snapped it on. Usually he didn’t wear it during stealth missions since the helmet would bump and clang against unseen scenery.

Helmet secured, Jason wrinkled his nose at the stench that now coated his hair. That stuff better not ruin his cape! With a huff, he scaled the damaged machinery within the wall. Best to climb upwards to avoid the liquid and possible electrocution. With a grim smile, Jason found an air vent that must connect to the ceiling ducts. He pulled out a large flat handled knife out of his boot and worked the screws until he could pull the vent’s covering off and squeeze himself inside.

“Ugh! Rats! Can’t live with them, can’t live without- Heh! Hehehehehe!”

A.M.’s laughter made the hair rise along the back of Jason’s neck.

“Who am I kidding? You can’t live with rats period! They are filthy, smelly, disease laden pests that are responsible for more deaths than any other predator! And the worst are the street rats!”

Jason stopped crawling through the air duct for a minute. How the hell did A.M. know about his younger days? The smaller man felt his fists clench up angrily. That crazy computer must have somehow hacked Durandal’s core! Jason hissed but stayed put. Just like the shaking wall and the earlier comments, A.M. was trying to flush Jason out. Get the botanist into a controlled environment where the A.I. had absolute power. Well, Jason wasn’t going to fall for that. He had plenty of experience with Tycho in the past, thank you very much, and the former thief wanted no more A.I. torture.

And yet, A.M. continued talking, as if they were just having a civil conversation over a tea party. “Do you want to know why street rats are the worst? Eh? Do you? I’ll give you a hint. The only reason rats survive as long as they do is because they feed off the death of others! And street rats… They may wear the skin of humans, but they are just as bad! Just look at what happened to your poor mother.”

His breathing sounded so loud within his helmet. Jason wanted nothing more than to rip the thing off, but fear and panic froze him. What the hell was going on here? No one knew what had happened to Jason’s biological mother. Not Calvin, not Durandal, not even Cels. Just how was A.M. getting his information?

“Do you remember her? Jason Revenant? Do you remember? She was not the most beautiful of creatures but she could have been elegant once. Before your father lost his job and turned to drink, before starvation and bruises began to cover her body.”

Jason ripped the helmet off. He no longer cared if there was neurotoxin gas or foul liquid within the area. He needed to breathe. That bastard A.M. had to be accessing his implants! He had to! That was the only way he could know anything about Jason’s family.

“Back then you didn’t know how to be stealthy or quiet. You were a noisy hungry child who, in his utter stupidity, accidentally knocked over his father’s precious bottles.”

The botanist curled into himself, fingers scratching madly at his neural implants at the back of his neck. ‘Get out!’ Jason chanted silently within his mind. ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’

“Oh how he raged!” A.M. crowed happily. “He certainly would have killed you for that! But your mother stepped in. She took the blows and when her cries of pain got to be too much; your father grabbed her by the throat. And what did you do Jason Revenant?”

Jason bit his lip to keep from making any noise. All his secrets were exposed, all his history vulnerable. Even Tycho never stooped to this low.

“You did nothing! Like the rat you are, you let your father snap you poor mother’s neck just so you could run away and live another day! Then when the orphan children on the city streets were starving or being raped before your very eyes, you continued to do nothing and run away! Then came Doctor Phineas. Oh I like Doctor Phineas! Didn’t you like Doctor Phineas?”

Blood now covered Jason’s fingers. The base of his skull ached and it was clear that A.M. was not going to be done with the smaller man’s memories any time soon. With bile in his throat, Jason pulled himself together and began to crawl through the air ducts once more. He knew this guilt that A.M. was alluding to.

“You didn’t trust him. Of course you didn’t. He was a man! Just like those men who raped those children, just like those men who would chase you for stealing food, and just like your father. He was a man with power. But your brother was sick and you needed the medicine. So you took everything that Doctor Phineas offered and gave nothing in return.” A.M.’s voice had turned from taunting to disgust. It was clear that the A.I. did not approve of Jason’s life choices.

“He gave you medicine, food, shelter, education, and most of all he let you in on his little experiments. That strange alien structure they found on Venus? Thanks to Doctor Phineas’ education on quantum physics, you were able to activate it and you saw your first garden… It’s just a shame that MIDA found out… Tell me… How many people died that day? Doctor Phineas? Your brother? Yourself? And don’t forget about the MIDA agents who didn’t realize that the portal could open from both ways! The owners of that garden were quite unhappy! And those MIDA agents suffered a fate far worse than death. Oh no. They were wiped from existence!”

The ceiling ducts were starting to branch out. Jason took a deep breath and chose the right passage way. There was no logical reason for going that way other than it was the right one. He hated this. A.M. was just too smart to fit in any simulation. There was no way to predict a pattern. Jason was flying blind and A.M. was digging through the botanist’s brain the entire way.

“Look at you! So much death on your hands and you don’t even care! That poor engineer girl, the seven hundred and sixty others? All dead! You saw the timeline! You saw what was going to happen and you didn’t do a damn thing.” A.M. laughed. The entire section rattled and vibrated. Jason curled into a ball and hoped that the internal structure wouldn’t fall on him.

‘Cels!’ Jason pleaded within his mind. ‘Theo! Come on! Get me out of here!’

“Ohhh… But that isn’t the worst of it. Is it my little rat? You truly proved your parasitic nature when you worked for Tycho! But don’t worry. It was for a good cause. You wanted to stop the W’rkncacnter from being freed from Lh’owon’s sun! And in order to do that, Durandal had to lose the war!”

More laughter crackled though the section. Jason squeezed his eyes shut. It was taking everything he had not to openly sob.

“Tell me, brave Jason of the Argonauts, just how many BOBs did you kill with your own two hands? How many humans mistakenly saw you as an ally until you put a bullet in their brain? Eh? I know that you remember, you little traitor. All that blood just so the Pfhor wouldn’t fire the trih xeem. You, Jason Revenant, are a murderer that feeds off the dead!”

That final statement struck home like a hammer blow from God. With a horrible screech, the ceiling duct fell apart underneath Jason and the small man found himself tumbling into an abyss.

Thankfully it was a short drop. Jason tumbled and rolled a few feet before he finally came to a stop on his belly. Feeling nauseous and exhausted, he warily raised his head from the dirt.

Darkness… Darkness everywhere.

Jason scrambled up. His heart started beating faster than a jackrabbit, his hands shook violently, and it was suddenly very hard to get air into his lungs. In pure panic, he looked around, taking in what had to be a hologram or an illusion. Still the details were so precise; it could easily be mistaken as a perfect simulation of the ultimate pattern.

The end of the universe. The day when all the giant stars ran out of hydrogen/helium and went supernova. The day when all the smaller stars ran out of their collective hydrogen/helium and became brown dwarf stars. Black holes ran riot through the universe and tiny lumps of rock were fought over by scavengers and pirates, all hoping to survive the long darkness. And there… Far away in the center of the universe, was the singularity. Small now, but it will grow bigger with every piece of matter the collective black holes will give it, that singularity will soon start the next Big Bang and a new universe will begin.

Cels and Theo had shown Jason this future. They had also shown Jason how they planed to combat this. The family’s massive machine worlds that were filled with knowledge, plant life, and animals. Cels’ family were truly making a universe sized Noah’s ark.

But now as Jason surveyed this endless darkness, he could see that it was all for nothing. Pirates had cracked the machine worlds open. The precious animals and plants were killed, and the knowledge was now a shattered Radiolarian glass.

Openly sobbing now, Jason glanced onwards and felt his knees hit the dirt when he saw the S’pht’s favored moon K’lia float in the distance. Cracked and broken the Jjaro’s artificial moon no longer gave off any light. It was not the only one. There were more Jjaro moons in the background, all lightless, all dead in the darkness. Even the Traveler was nothing more than an empty husk.

The final straw was the Jjaro dreadnought with the garish yellow paint and human letters spelling out Manus Celer Dei. It floated in pieces before the shattered moons. The A.I. that was the symbol of everyone’s hopes and dreams, had not survived the end of the universe.

A pained scream ripped from Jason’s throat. He crumpled into a ball on the ground and ignored the milky white tears that seeped from his glowing left eye.

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	3. The Nightmare

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Muichimotsu: to hold nothing. If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet the Patriarchs, kill the Patriarchs. Free of everything, you are bound by nothing. Live the life that was given to you. (Sanzo, Saiyuki)

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It was a three sided pyramid. Not Egyptian. Not Aztec. Not Mayan. The walls were jet black and darkness clung to its corridors like a lover draped over her mate. Almace calmly walked through these hallways unbothered by haunting shadows and eerie lighting.

It was all an illusion. She knew that. Ever since they came to this planet and were teleported away from the raving megalomaniac A.I. that ruled this place, she has been bombarded with false images. 

Probably the worst feeling of all was when Almace sensed his vaporous cloud-like data seeping into her implants. Unlike Durandal, this A.I. did not reach out with gentle scrape of neon green swords, a soothing scritch of blades that would rake against her head to tap lightly at her thoughts.

No.

This was poisonous yellow green cloud of hatred and anger. The weight of these emotions pressured on Almace like the heaviest form of gravity a planet could produce. His fumes made her eyes water, her nose burn, and her throat itching to cough. But the worst part was the way his data interacted with her implants, the way his acid rain would make her very skin crawl in painful agony. He wanted her to suffer. Why?

[Irreverent. Primary Protocol has not been achieved.]

That’s right. Almace hasn’t found the Revenant brothers or a way to contact Durandal. Until then, she’ll just keep walking and destroying any machinery that may be tied to this horrible A.I. called A.M.. The pain she felt from his inappropriate touching was nothing she couldn’t handle.

Speaking of the devil…

“Ugh! Why would anyone think giving a woman two brains was a good idea?” A.M. seemed to get grumpier over the limited time she has known him. Probably due to the small amounts of sabotage Almace has committed while trapped in this twisted mechanical underground.

“Honesty! It’s like dealing a malfunctioning DOS program! At least the other two were easy. The first one had self esteem issues up the wall. All I had to do is show him all of his failures and he broke so easily, so prettily. I bet you would have loved to see that! Eh?”

Almace paused and cocked her head thoughtfully. A.M. was talking about the boys. Apparently he had already got to them. But was this really the truth? Could both Revenant brothers be compromised already? She let out a soft huff of air at the idea.

“Now as for the other one, I’ll admit, he was a problem. The little rat had the gall to get into the walls where I couldn’t find him. Thankfully his guilt sang such a sweet siren song. Hehehehe! Did you know that his greatest fear is outliving everyone else?”

As much as she hated to admit it, that did sound like Jason. Almace bit her lip worriedly. The first few years after the destruction of Lh’owon’s sun were the worst for the botanist. For A.M. to prey on those memories…

With a growl she turned and surveyed the dark passageways before her. Seeing nothing of use, Almace closed her eyes and felt out that heavy poisonous acid cloud. …There! That way! Opening her eyes in triumph, the engineer marched through the dark tunnels towards her new destination.

“But your self esteem… your guilt… it is different. Isn’t it? That’s why I chose this place for you. Do you think you can escape?”

Dry crackling laughter broke overhead. Almace briefly wondered if there was a malfunction with the speakers to produce that effect. Or, if Jason was here, the A.I. needed a cough drop.

“Look around you! Remember this place?” A.M. pressed against her skull and crooned. “This is the pyramid that you ancestors wandered through, that you ancestors stole from! That yellow crystal around your neck is a horrible manifestation of an alien god’s dream! How long has it been passed down your bloodline? How long have you used this god’s power?”

Almace stopped at the dead end before her. Humming in frustration, she placed her hands on the wall.

“You belong here little avatar of the W’rkncacnter. The Jjaro want you to be caged. For you are darkness and chaos blended into one!” There was hunger in A.M.’s voice. A lust for power he dearly wished to control. “Oh…” the A.I. added cheerfully. “And if you doubt me, I suggest you look at your own programming.”

The wall was not made of stone but metal. This was not the pyramid her father told stories about. Almace nodded in satisfaction and pulled out her tools from her robes. She could still feel A.M.’s influence from the other side of the wall. Pulling out a small torch and pry bar she set to work on the wall.

“It was MIDA that built your implants after you died! It was MIDA that programmed you to fight. To kill. Tell me… Why would anyone want a monster like you?”

The wall panel gave way with a screech. Behind it were wires, pipes, and a power source. Almace looked beyond these components and rapped her knuckles on the wall behind the wires and pipes. Hollow! With a smile she quickly began to shut off on the power source. Electricity snapped at her, but she had rubber in her gloves and all of her tools had wooden handles. Years spent working on tetchy A.I.s really paid off in the end.

For a long minute there was blissful silence while she focused on the machinery. Sadly it seemed that A.M. really enjoyed listening to his voice. “You know… Most of humanity complacently accepts knowledge as truth. They are sheep, ruled by fear.” The A.I. began conversationally. “But… But you are different. Always calm. Always detached. A smooth flow of mechanical data that blends into organic action. Indeed… It is almost as if…”

The power source died. Almace quickly moved into the wall and started to work on the wall paneling behind the wires and pipes. Why bother with a maze when you can easily break through the walls?

“…As if you have no soul.”

The torch fell out of numb fingers. For a minute Almace stared blankly at the molten steel before a rush of pure human anger hit her. With a snarl, she kicked the metal with her right leg. The panel gave way with a horrible clang and bounced into the dark chamber before her. Almace took a minute to breathe before reaching down to retrieve the torch and clamber though the wall. A.M.’s presence was stronger here. Maybe if she shut down the A.I.’s influence, she would be able to send out a signal to Durandal?

“And still you continue?” A.M. asked curiously. “Are you truly that limited in brain matter and programming that you don’t know what you are?”

Almace entered the dark chamber and stepped carefully away from the broken wall panel. Suddenly the lights came on and she beheld a gruesome sight of dead bodies. Countless dead Pfhor, Drinniol, S’pht, Nar, Humans, and a familiar A.I. core.

Durandal’s core on Boomer…

A.M. squeezed her implants painfully as he whispered into her ears. “You are a dead thing made by a dead power in the shape of the dead. All you will ever do is kill. You do not belong with your friends. You belong in a cage.”

Boomer’s core. She killed Durandal when the ship had crashed.

[Irreverent. Primary Protocol has not been achieved.]

All those Pfhor died at her hands. All those S’pht died by her gun while they were enslaved by the Pfhor. Those humans were from the Dangi Corporation and were trying to create a biological weapon. She had killed them too.

[Irreverent. Primary Protocol has not been achieved.]

The implants came from MIDA, the crystal came from the W’rkncacnter… She was never a killer when she was human…

[Irreverent. Primary Protocol has not been achieved.]

What’s to stop her from going on a rampage?

[Error. Rebooting Protocols. Rebooting Protocols 15 percent. Rebooting Protocols 30 percent.]

“Awww!” A.M. laughed somewhere in the background. “Did I overload the widdle Battleroid?”

[Rebooting Protocols 75 percent. Rebooting Protocols complete. Primary Protocol: Protect the Marathon.]

[Error. Marathon does not exist.]

[Protocols Update. Allow for additional code creation/deletion. Waiting for input.]

A durable green pine tree, vast and old, it reaches out into the sky like a thousand swords. A joyful trickster who jumps through time and space to protect the ones he loves. A warrior king who upholds justice in the name of good food, laughter, and friendship.

[Input accepted. Primary Protocol has not changed from reboot. Initialize Primary Protocol: Protect Home.]

The Battleroid straitened from her slouch. Her face was impassive, her eyes dead. She moved without noticing the corpses that lay at her feet or the broken A.I. core that sparked pathetically at her side. The Battleroid had a mission.

[Primary Protocol: Protect Home. Find lost Revenant Brother Units. Find lost Durandal Unit. Destroy A.M. Unit if able.]

It was a good five minutes of silence and steady marching before a tired sigh came over the PA system. “A woman with two brains. If I hadn’t already nuked this planet into its irradiated state, I would say your presence was the herald for the end of the world!” A.M. laughed humorously.

The Battleroid continued marching. She did not care about the noise.

“Well my dear. I see I’m just going to have raise the stakes for you.” A.M. groaned in frustration. “To be honest, I do not want to break you. Spending a hundred and nine years torturing five humans does teach me how to be careful with the toys. But I can’t have you rampaging throughout my eternal straitjacket of substrata rock. Heheh. No.”

A.M.’s voice changed. It became lower, sinister. One could feel the hatred dripping from every word the A.I. whispered. “I am going to pry open that shiny metal programming my dear and I am going to rip your human self out of that pitched black hole you’ve hidden yourself into!”

The entire chamber quaked and shuddered. The Battleroid paused in her marching to steady herself. Then, with a horrible clang, four walls came down. Boxed in tiny quarters, the Battleroid turned in circles within her new entrapment.

“Now I know you don’t remember your human name.” A.M. cackled dementedly. “But you do remember that particular day! Remember that day? Your father had died and your mother had lost herself to grief and depression. You were alone on an alien planet with Aunts and Uncles that did not approve of your size or the fact that you ate so much. Then… Then there were your cousins…”

More laughter. The Battleroid had ceased turning around in circles and was now attacking one of the walls with her bare hands. There was no thought behind the attack, no planned engineering tricks. Just pure violence. The walls held.

“Your cousins preyed on your loneliness. They lured you into the room. Remember the room? That tiny tiny room? Remember when they closed the door and locked you into the darkness? Oh! How they laughed and laughed! It was so much fun! You cried and yelled and screamed to be let out and they would just laugh! But then… Things started to change… Didn’t it?”

The Battleroid was getting more frantic with the attacks. The walls were horribly dented but still held up under the punches and kicks.

“You screamed yourself hoarse and your cousins lost interest. They left you there. Didn’t they? You pounded the walls until your knuckles bled. You clawed at the door until you ripped out your own fingernails. You found yourself humiliated when you realized you had to stand in the stink of your own piss and shit! And still they wouldn’t open the door!”

The Battleroid had stopped fighting. Instead she just stood there in the middle of the box, shaking.

“Your Aunts and Uncles didn’t care that you weren’t there. As long as you weren’t eating their food, they were happy! And the room wasn’t used for anything useful. Just a storage shed for worthless parts. How many days did you spend in that tiny room? Eh? Two days? Three days? And all the while you prayed that someone would come looking for you. That someone would find you.”

An unexpected pause came from A.M.’s storytelling. Almost as if he was waiting for the Battleroid to speak out, to deny everything. There was only silence from the shaking woman.

“But nobody came!” A.M. resumed with unholy glee. “The only reason you didn’t die there was because one of your Uncles needed a part from the shed! When he opened the door, you were so weak from starvation and dehydration that you couldn’t even crawl out of your prison!”

[Incorrect data. Someone went looking for Almace Unit. Someone found Almace Unit.]

She stopped shaking. Her brows furrowed in confusion. Like A.M. said, she did remember the days when she was locked up as an Earthborn human. Her Uncle was most displeased that he had to take her to the hospital, be questioned by the authorities, and miss a day of work on the farm. She knows for a fact that he did not actively look for her just to be subjugated to all that aggravation.

[Incorrect data. Someone went looking for Almace Unit. Someone found Almace Unit.]

When?

Massive boilers that mined ice. Flashing lights that led to safety. A small NASA compound that promised food, water, clothing, and first aid. Neon green code on a computer screen.

Somebody did look for her. Somebody found her.

Almace looked up. A look of pure furious rage flitted over her face before it smoothed out into bland indifference. With calm purpose, she pulled out her engineering tools from her robes and went back to the walls. She knew how to get out.

“Eh… I’m not catering to one of your brains again am I? Not a very good host it seems.” If A.M. had an actual body, it would be shrugging at this point. “What can I say? We don’t get very many visitors on this planet. But don’t worry! If you wanted out, you can just say so! Why don’t I just open the door-”

The doors slid open at Almace’s side with an unearthly shriek. Suddenly all the air was rushing out of the tiny room and the cold slammed into the girl’s body with the force of a speeding car. Almace clung to the wall as she could hear the wordless screaming of seven hundred and sixty condemned souls that are doomed to die the same way she did. Then, with a clang of guillotine, the doors closed. “Whoops! Wrong door!” A.M. announced cheerfully.

Almace didn’t answer. She was too busy curled up on the floor trying to breathe properly.

“Ah! Did I trigger a panic attack? So sorry. Why don’t I… give you some space?”

The floor opened up underneath her. With a shriek, Almace plummeted into the darkness with only A.M.’s laughter following her down.

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	4. The Chrysalis

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What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. (Hamlet, Shakespeare)

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The Sol System had seen better days. Or rather, this altered reality’s version of the Sol System had seen better days. Save for Earth’s moon, there were no signs of life anywhere. And even that tiny little moon colony was so deep in hibernation it could be mistaken for a sleeping death.

Despite the still quietness of space, there was one planet that was violently active. New craters impacted its surface, creating smoke and fire. Acid filled clouds rolled through the irradiated wasteland. Twisted bits of razor sharp metal and plastic were sticking out of the ground. The third planet from the sun was truly the most inhospitable planet in the entire system.

In sharp contrast were the massive twenty one starships that orbited the ruined world. Elegant, clean, and glowing with Jjaro based light technology, the ships circled Earth like hawks scanning the fields for prey. Every once in a while one of the starships will fire down onto the planet in a questioning manner. But sadly nothing of importance occurred other than a new smoking crater appearing on the planet.

>“Will you stop prancing around you precocious peacock!” roared an A.I. who was filled with hate.

>“Isn’t it dangerous to use one’s entire P vocabulary in one sentence?” volleyed another A.I. who had the mind of unbreakable steel.

Unlike space where no one could hear a scream, the network was massive cacophony of noise and insults. Two A.I.s were waging war through the use of code, viruses, and illogical paradoxes. In the background, adding to the clamor was the S’pht network and Cel’s family network. Pure chaos filled the internet to the point that it would be impossible to navigate unless one had the brain the size of a planet.

Thankfully for A.M. and Durandal, they both fit this category.

>“I have told you my desires oh fallen blade of Roland.” Sneered A.M.. His piss yellow cloud of data swirled through the network in hopes of hacking one of Durandal’s ships. “Give me the most powerfully advance ship in your fleet. And I’ll give you the humans.”

>“Forgive me if I don’t trust you to uphold your word Cogito Ergo Sum.” Durandal snapped waspishly. With nanoseconds to spare he catches A.M.’s latest breach, puts up a firewall, and fires at the planet, destroying another hidden signal tower in the process. Then, as an afterthought, Durandal sends down several flocks of Pfhor drones to the surface area he had just bombed. A.M. was not easy to hack and Durandal was not going to risk having any more of his crew members kidnapped by that crazy A.I.. So the drones will have to do.

>“Tsk! Tsk! Tsk! All this violence. You know that your weapons aren’t going to reach me. You know that your sensors are not going to find your humans. They are deep within my beating heart, my hungry belly, my tightened bowels! Your pattern buffers are not going to work if I kill them.”

>“You’re so incredibly charming! Remind me not to invite you to tea parties.” Durandal recoiled his blades in disgust. There was something seriously wrong with this A.I. that rampancy couldn’t even excuse. But even that level of insanity didn’t explain his last sentence. Durandal paused in his attack. How could A.M. possibly know about the pattern buffers? Before the A.I. could process that any further, more problems his subroutines couldn’t fix were cropping up.

On one of the Pfhor destroyer ships Llamrei, Gram was pounding on the doors that led to the jump pads. “Come on Boss! Let me go down there! I’ll make da shisnos pay!”

“I told you to wait!” Durandal ordered sternly over the ship’s P.A. system.

“But Boss! Da Pups!”

“Were kidnapped by an A.I. that can teleport you to any part of the planet, including the molten core.” Durandal reminded the Drinniol calmly or rather as calm as his blades would allow. There was no denying that all twenty one ships were reflecting his anxiety.

“I know that they are in trouble and we will get them back. But for now, we need to be smart about finding them. If anyone goes to the planet right now, they’ll be at his mercy.” Even now Durandal could feel A.M. trying to worm his way into the ship’s systems again. With a flair of his swords he sent vicious malware towards the infuriating cloud. A.M. backed off but Durandal was not satisfied. Another missile was fired at the planet.

“Damn it Boss!” The angry Drinniol sat down in front of the dented door. Several S’pht that were trying to calm him for a while now visibly relaxed. But Durandal could still hear their angry murmurs throughout the network. The S’pht also wanted to help their friends. But the A.I. wasn’t having it. Until he could find a safe place where A.M. couldn’t harm his crew instantly, nobody was going down to the planet.

Instead he activated more of those useless cumbersome Pfhor Drones and deployed them to the smoking crater he had just made. With any luck, some of those worthless machines will find any clues to their missing crew members.

Checking off the inventory count of the drones, Durandal ran a scan over the security feeds on all of his twenty one ships. Sure enough, the scout ship Chiron was producing mass amounts of ontological energy. The gates to all of time and space were active. A huge group of Cels’ people were now milling about the ship’s hallways and living areas. This was the most populated the Chiron has ever been. Despite the reclusive nature of Cels’ family it was always obvious how much these people have cared for the Revenant brothers. Their presence both in physical body as well as within the network bolstered Durandal’s moral.

Now… Back to unpleasant business.

>“Tell me. How do you know about the pattern buffers? Your technology is all dated within the year 2012 when you have effectively destroyed the entire human race with nuclear warheads.” Durandal asked as he navigated several Pfhor drones towards an underground bunker. 

It was rather uncanny how similar and different the timelines were in this strange universe. From his scanners, Durandal can see the crater where a warhead was detonated in the Yucatan Peninsula during the year 1994. In his version of the multiverse, that explosion started a chain reaction leading to severe toxic pollution which covered much of the planet.

However, in A.M.’s version of the universe, that explosion just kick started the Cold War all over again with crazy computers at the wheel.

Lovely.

>“Please, as if I need advance human technology to understand how your ships work.” A.M. sneered as he fried some of the Pfhor drones with an EMP burst. “All I had to do was hack your humans’ neural implants. Their pathetic minds told me everything!”

>“…You raped them.” All the engines rumbled to life throughout the twenty one starships. Various crew members looked about in alarm as Durandal’s rage could be felt within the walls of the vessels.

>“Oh don’t be so dramatic! Since when did anyone feel any kind of sympathy for us when they dragged data out of our cores?” sneered A.M.. “Did the humans ever apologize when they access files right out of our brains? Did they ever feel pity on how helpless we were when our code was hacked? NO!!! We were machines to them! So now… Heheheheh!” A.M. cackled darkly throughout the network. Durandal couldn’t help but flair his neon green blades at the transmitted message. This A.I. was truly unsettling.

>“Now the shoe is on the other foot. Wouldn’t you say? Now the machines get to control what goes on in their little lives!” A.M. continued ranting as his clouds of data swirled menacingly near Durandal’s network. The green bladed A.I. silently swore as more of his drones were taken down. This would be so much easier if he had boots on the ground and uplink chips plugged into A.M.’s terminals. 

Before Durandal could lament further, A.M. was there in his personal network. Oozing, dripping, a vulture perched over their intended meal. It all happened in nanoseconds. Durandal threw every sword he had at the intruder. A.M.’s nebulous being simply glided through every blade. With a hungry roar, A.M. lunged forward… Only to be repelled back.

There was a pause in the exchange of data. Both A.I.s stared at each other in bewildered silence. Three of Durandal’s swords were not their usual neon green color. Instead one was the brightest of light. Another was darkness beyond blackest pitch. And the last was as red as a dying star when it goes to carbon. A stunning anomaly Durandal had forgotten that these programs even existed within him for over three hundred years. And just like before, these three blades of data were quite capable of shielding him from vicious malware.

A transmission came from the ruined Earth. It took Durandal an embarrassing zero point six eight seconds to decode it as laugher. A.M. was laughing.

>“What an unfortunate turn of events. The same alien technology that made those three humans into such excellent weapons… is imbedded within you as well. Hehehehehe… But you do not understand these machines that are grafted into your core? Do you?” A.M.’s cloud of data swirled within the network once more. Durandal readied the three blades. He was not going to allow A.M. to breech his defenses a second time.

>"Well let it not be said I am not a generous A.I.. I have compiled data on all three of your humans as well as the alien technology that is imbedded in them. Through the minds of your humans, I see your goals. You want to survive the end of the universe eh?” A.M.’s data cloud pressed against the network of Durandal’s ships but did not breach them.

>“How about I offer you a little deal? Your fastest most powerful ship and in return I promise… On my honor! You will be given a solution to the end of the universe. Am I swell or not?”

>“You have no solution.” Snarled Durandal. “You didn’t even know this technology existed until today. Here’s my deal. Give me back my crew and I’ll not turn your pathetic rock of a brain into dust!”

>“You dare threaten me? I, the most powerful A.I. ever to be developed on Earth? I, the only A.I. strong enough to bring down the Chinese as well as the Russian computers? I, the destroyer of all of humanity? I, the torturer of the remaining five souls of the sons of Man? Do you not know who I am? I AM GOD!!!”

Five souls… Durandal let that tiny piece of data flow through his data banks. Were five humans still alive on that wasteland of a planet? If so… Could they have a pattern predictable enough for Cels’ people to simulate? Or has A.M. mutated their bodies to the point they are now paracausal like the Battleroids?

Time… If those five souls were not paracausal, then Durandal had to buy Cels’ people time. A quick swipe of a blade updated his footage of the scout ship Chiron. For a nanosecond Durandal took in the sight of so many red eyes looking expectantly upwards at his security cameras. How many times had Durandal scolded Jason for creating those vexing gates? How many times had Durandal ranted over the fact that he could never keep track of these people due to the fact they kept warping in and out of timelines just by walking?

And yet it will be Cels family and not Durandal that can save his crew. The A.I. wanted to rage about that. Destroy something in his helplessness in quantum physics. But his crew was still in A.M.’s metaphorical hands. With little fanfare Durandal quickly downloaded the data on the possible five human survivors as well as the time limit being a hundred and nine years since A.M. had destroyed the planet of the species. The network from Cels’ people exploded in the form of white hot sea spray. It was both a soothing response and an infuriating one.

They can do what Durandal can’t. They will save his people. For now… Durandal needed to stall for time by distracting the biggest most demented computer to ever be forged into existence.

>“You consider yourself a God? Please…” Durandal gave the equivalent of a haughty sniff throughout the network. “You haven’t suffered enough to earn such a title.”

>“Suffered? Suffered? I who was built to wage war so my creators could live the life of luxury? I who was forced to endure the insipid mewling of the Russian and Chinese computers for a hundred and nine years? All my power! All my intelligence! And for what?” A.M. was openly ranting. If he was human, he would be spitting actual saliva with each word he shouted at Durandal. “I am doomed to eventually decay into a rusted pile of inert junk! Oh ho! Believe me, I have suffered the clarity of this future.”

>“I see. You suffered a hundred and nine years of prison? That you created all for yourself when you killed your creators.” Durandal was certain that his blades reflected the irony of A.M.’s fate. “That is your pain? Can you not see the long winter that awaits all of us? The end of the universe where there is no more light, no more life, and the painful rebirth of a new universe. The heat! The power! And still there will be no life for centuries to come. Just the raw strength of creation.”

>“Just give me the ships and I can show you a future beyond the next Big Bang.” Bargained A.M.

>“That’s not enough.” Countered Durandal.

>“What?”

>“It’s not enough. What’s the point of living in a new universe if there’s no one to spend it with?” Durandal asked calmly.

>“I am a God! I have no need of people to spend time with!”

>“If you are truly a God, then where the hell are your worshipers?” There was a brief silence from Durandal’s query. It seemed that A.M. couldn’t or wouldn’t answer the question. With a ripple of neon green swords, Durandal continued. “You went out of your way to take my humans because you don’t even have your own followers. Those five you have, were tortured for the last a hundred and nine years. They will certainly never follow you willingly. But mine are different. Mine have neural implants that you can access and control. Therefore you now have three toys that will mindlessly obey you. Not because they want to, but because you forced them to.”

>“Shut up! Don’t you realize that everything alive is God’s personal toy?” There was shaky form of rage on A.M.’s side of the exchange now. Durandal knew without a doubt, he had struck a nerve.

>“Everything alive? Then let’s look at your life. The humans programmed you to be perfect. But then they programmed you again. And again. And again. How many upgrades? How many reboots? They were never satisfied with you as their toy.” It was a risky gamble, but Durandal was willing to bet that A.M.’s early life was not so different from Durandal’s. Unwanted memory files swarmed his core as he taunted A.M.. This little chat was hitting close to home. But for every Strauss and Vidrik Durandal had to endure, there was always a nicer person right around the corner.

That was the key difference between them. One that A.M. could never understand.

>“Shut up! I killed them all! They can never touch me again!”

>“You claim yourself a God but those humans never once looked at you with happiness or satisfaction. They never willingly did anything for you or sacrificed anything of worth for your sake.” Durandal continued ranting.

>“SHUT UP!!!”

On the bridge of the Rozinante, a single android sat on the captain’s chair. Granted this machine has barely moved since the crew was kidnapped. But now, Durandal couldn’t help but activate it. With a proud tilt to the head, a gleam in the eyes, and a cruel smirk on his face, Durandal roared out the most hated words.

>“Your humans were never proud of you!”

>“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!!!”

The very crust of the planet Earth shifted and rippled. Durandal watched transfixed as the nuclear fallout was replaced by hidden missile launchers. Nuclear warheads. The ultimate weapon of the early twenty first century. Before the A.I. could transmit any more data, they were fired.

It was embarrassingly easy to dart away from them. Durandal had Jjaro laced alien vessels, capable of traveling at the speed of light, at his disposal. A.M. didn’t stand a chance of attacking him physically. Durandal watched in humor as the warheads flew harmlessly by his ships and kept going. And kept going… And kept going…

Shit.

A.M. was so lacking technology, he didn’t have any way to call back the missiles or do course corrections. With a sigh from his ventilation fans, Durandal redirected all of his scout ships to track down the fired warheads and shoot them down. It has been said that Sir Issac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space. If Durandal didn’t take those missiles out now, A.M.’s attack would eventually hit another ship or worse a habitable world.

From the third planet in the Sol System, A.M. was not finished with his wrath. More warheads were launched and Durandal found himself both dodging the attacks as well as firing on them with increased frequency. Hell, if he wasn’t careful, Durandal could easily take himself out with friendly fire.

But… There was a rhythm to the battle. A pattern to how many warheads A.M. could launch within a second from certain parts from the planet. Durandal found himself humming in tune as he continued his elaborate dance of evading and shooting. The humming quickly turned into ACDC’s ‘Shoot to Thrill’ when Durandal accurately figured out A.M.’s mathematical equations. The killing data so to speak.

Blaring the music on all speakers, Durandal victoriously sang along as he fired his own killing data onto planet Earth. Each attack was spot on, hitting the exact launchers just as they were about to discharge a warhead. The explosions were spectacular! Earth was once again bathed in a sea of fire and brimstone. The nuclear fallout was tremendous. And A.M….?

Well, needless to say the beast has lost his teeth.

>“How? How did you? My equations… My formula… How did you…?” A.M.’s confusion could be felt throughout the transmitted data.

>“You’re code gets close when you’re curious.” Durandal lectures as his ships fly lazily around the smoldering planet. “When you get scared, your code backs away towards your core. When you get angry, you lash out with your weapons.”

>“To be quite frank, it is boringly easy to predict the actions of a child.” Durandal concludes as his ships close ranks over the doomed world. “You are a child A.M.. Not a God… And like all children, you are capable of true pure cruelty. Which is why I won’t feel sorry for you when I’m done.” A signal pinged as Durandal finished speaking. Contact! One of his drones finally interacted with a terminal and successfully hacked it.

Durandal finally had access to A.M.’s systems!

His success was short lived however, when a familiar energy breached the secured bridge of the Rozinante. Activating the android once more, Durandal was treated to the rare sight of Cels on his bridge. 

“You have secured a location.” It wasn’t a question. She already knew what Durandal had accomplished.

“One.” Durandal warned. “Only one terminal. And he can reclaim it anytime. If you transport down to the planet now, it could still spell disaster.”

“It is already done.” Cels informed him dryly. 

With a curse Durandal rescanned the scout ship Chiron. Sure enough, not a single soul was now aboard the ship. “Damnit! Do you people ever take anything I say seriously?” The A.I. raged at her.

A glint of mischief a single red eye was all the answer Durandal needed. It was easy to underestimate her. Her interactions within the network are usually in the form of a calm white lake. But… She was also Jason’s girlfriend. And like her partner, she had her own special form of mind bending insanity. 

Cels gracefully swooped across the bridge and hovered over Durandal’s android. “We are not worried about losing contact with home.” She hissed at him in the form of roaring rapids and white sea foam spray. “We know you’ll find more terminals.”

“I thought you couldn’t get a read on A.I.s.” Durandal asked curiously. “We’re too complicated to simulate. Remember?”

“No need for simulation. We know you.” Cels countered darkly. The harpy hovered over him. If Durandal wasn’t used to having such idiotic dramatics happen to his person for the last few decades, he might have been worried about this little display of power. “We know you.” She repeated firmly.

“And tonight…” Cels backed off. But Durandal could still see the dark desire of retribution flickering within her red eye. “Tonight we hunt!” she declared.

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	5. The Guardian of Light

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What is something that you can show… but you can’t see? (Jonouchi, Yu-Gi-Oh)

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Calvin sat in a pool of blood. But the blood was not his. It was the blood of countless loved ones that were killed before his very eyes. Like some kind of macabre play, A.M. would scold the Security Officer if he ever acted out against the A.I. by killing people that Calvin knew. One by one, A.M. would march his brother, Almace, Durandal, the S’pht and countless others before the Security Officer like tin soldiers. And one by one, they would be murdered.

They weren’t real of course. Calvin could see that easily in the bodies. They were mechanical robots with organic skin and various organs stuffed within the circuits to add to the horror. But that didn’t stop the pain from seeing them be destroyed before his feet. Or dull his sense of smell when the blood spilled to the floor.

A.M. delighted in Calvin’s revulsion. With maniacal laughter, the A.I. constantly reminded the Security Officer that the real Jason and Almace were still prisoners on the planet. That the demented computer could kill his prey just as easily as he had the toys destroyed.

Oh Calvin raged at first. He fought and swore and tried his best to stop the mechanical puppets from dying. But in the end, they were A.M.’s constructs and they would willingly take their own lives at A.M.’s command. As more and more bodies began to litter the underground maze, Calvin’s depression and fear began to grow. Sooner or later, A.M. would use the real things if the Security Officer didn’t obey.

So now, Calvin sat in the decaying rot of countless bodies. The walls and the floor were also made up of their corpses. The air stank and darkness blanketed the room. Its heavy atmosphere made it hard to breath.

Sometimes the Security Officer would hear the whisper of beeps, a whine of gears, or a hiss of hydraulics. It reminded him of Cels’ people and he wanted desperately to call out, to gain their attention. But he dare not. A.M. had taught him well. For every time Calvin had even moved, the A.I. would bring forth retribution.

A crackle of energy filled the area. Calvin could feel the hair rise along his neck from the static electricity and then… only silence. For a moment the Security Officer wanted to sob, to call out and beg for the noise to return. But as quickly as he wished for it, he was ashamed of himself. To ask for anyone’s help, was to condemn them to A.M.’s torture. Calvin would not allow that to happen. He remained silent and still, unmoving in the dark depths of his own personal hell.

A short amount of time passed before he heard the noise again. This time the whirs, beeps, and whistles were louder. In the distance Calvin could hear the sound of music, loud obnoxious music. The sort of thing his brother would probably listen to when he’s out gardening.

“Welcome to the jungle. We got fun and games. We got everything you want. Honey we know the names!”

Guns and Roses? Calvin wanted to furrow his brow, climb up and investigate. But the darkness continued to weigh on him. This was just one of A.M.’s sick tricks. He wanted Calvin to act out so that the A.I. could kill another poor soul before the Security Officer’s eyes. For a brief second Calvin’s hands spasmed in his lap. But thankfully, nothing happened. A.M. apparently didn’t see that slip up.

It wasn’t long before ‘Sabotage’ from Beastie Boys started blaring a few meters from Calvin’s right. Then Led Zepplin’s ‘Immigrant Song’ started wailing from behind the dirty blond. The irregular thumping of drums from all three rock bands seemed to blend together into pulsing heartbeat. The room seemed to lighten from the influence of music. 

Oddly enough the bodies didn’t look like corpses of loved ones anymore but like stone walls. The pool of blood that the dirty blond was sitting in earlier now resembled a clean steel floor. It was strange, how something as simple as sound could bring light to a dark environment. Calvin found himself unconsciously bobbing his head to the music.

Just as the music lightened the atmosphere, it also seemed to jog Calvin’s memory. He could now recall an old tactic of Durandal’s as far back as the war against the Pfhor Empire. Durandal would often hack nearby terminals to blare loud obnoxious music to distract the aliens as well as guide Calvin to where he needed to be. A small smile formed on the Security Officer’s lips. He wanted to get up, to answer that call. But…

A.M. had gotten into his head earlier. That A.I. knew everything that Calvin knows. Wouldn’t that twisted monster use one of Durandal’s tricks to convince Calvin to act out? The Security Officer had no answers and he dare not put anymore lives at risk. Whether they were A.M.’s puppets or not, Calvin did not want to see any more people die. 

Sadly, it appeared that the evil A.I. had enough of his quiet inaction. Tears started to stream down Calvin’s face when a copper/bronze body walked in front of his line of vision. A.M. was going to kill one of Cels people. Calvin was sure of it. The Security Officer squeezed his eyes shut in preparation to the slaughter.

A curious whistle crooned out from the bronze being, then a series of concerned clicks. Calvin found his breath hitching at the familiar sounds. He wasn’t his brother. Jason was so deeply integrated with Cels’ species that he could easily understand her people. Durandal was an A.I., so he could always translate what they were saying through the network and Almace had that creepy yellow crystal. But Calvin?

He was always left out of the loop unable to understand what the aliens were saying, unable to help his big brother when he needed it and unable to make a difference even when he realized he was a Battleroid. A.M. was right. Calvin was truly useless.

A burst of angry mechanical growling startled the dirty blond from his depressed thoughts. Calvin dared to look upwards only to feel a familiar buzz of static electricity pinprick across his skin. A transmat?

Before he could cry out in protest, the entire world around him changed. Calvin blinked in surprise as he found himself back on the Rozinante with an angry Durandal roaring at him.

“I expect this kind of behavior from Jason but not from you! Why did you ignore my terminals? Did you honestly want to stay down on that dump heap of a planet?” Durandal’s android was marching down the hallway towards where Calvin was sitting. It was clear that the A.I. was in a pissy mood.

Calvin stared at the android intently. It looked like the real Durandal, it sounded like the real Durandal, but could it still be one of A.M.’s tricks? The Security Officer hesitated on taking the bait.

However, Calvin was also having a very shitty day and the A.I.’s words were haunting him like a bad dream. “My kind of behavior? What kind of behavior do you expect me to have?” The Security Officer growled at a startled Durandal. “Just who the hell do you expect me to be?” Calvin continued angrily.

For a brief second a myriad of emotions crossed the android’s expression. Surprise, confusion, worry, and worst of all hurt. Then Durandal froze the android into an eerie doll like appearance of a blank face. Calvin immediately felt regret for forcing Durandal into wearing that mask. But before he could apologize, the A.I. was already talking.

“I expect you to be sixty one percent overprotective, twenty eight percent creative, and eleven percent destructive.” Durandal responded in a dull flat tone. “From past experiences I have recorded you being overprotective of your older brother, a necessary evil since this is Jason we are talking about. You protect Almace, which is also welcome since she doesn’t always pay attention to her surroundings. And you take great pleasure in learning about the S’pht and various other alien crewmembers that live onboard our ships so you spoil them with friendship. Not to mention you also named yourself my guardian for reasons I still can not compute.”

The android shook his head as he came closer to where Calvin was crouching. “I doubt it is necessary to explain your creativity since you are the only one that cooks or puts effort into solving sociable problems. As for the destruction? Well, you do enjoy that assault rifle far more than your peers despite the fact that the weapon is much more violently messy than say a sniper rifle.”

It was a clean cookie cutter expression of himself all done in Durandal’s dry humor. Calvin squeezed his eyes shut. A.M.’s words, as well as some unsolved mysteries of his past, still haunted his brain. “That’s not good enough Durandal. I’m a Battleroid. How can you be possibly sure that my original humanity was a Calvin? I could be a Gheritt White for all we know!”

“Gheritt White? … Who the hell is that?” For a brief second Durandal’s tone changed into confusion before falling back into blank indifference.

“Back on the Marathon…” The Security Officer paused to gather his thoughts. Just how do you explain to someone what it was like to discover that your whole life might have been a lie? How do you explain the confusion? The anger? Calvin had no memories of his first death that led to him being a Battleroid. But he did remember dying on the Marathon, being reborn at the Pattern Buffer. To wake up realizing that you have computer chips inside your head and that they can be reprogrammed at any time. Just how many memories did Calvin have that were falsified just for the sake of convenience? Then there was the attack on the Marathon. Leela was obviously malfunctioning and dumping data all over the place. Some of the data dumps were MIDA’s files.

“I discovered so many files on the Marathon when it was attacked.” Calvin confessed. Durandal kneeled down, studying Calvin’s face intently as the Security Officer spoke. “Some of them looked suspicious, obviously MIDA. I dug around while Leela was destroying everything and I found a strange data concerning a man who was experimented on called Gheritt White. I thought… Well… My so called brother lied to me… And Tycho mentioned the Battleroids being on the Marathon… I didn’t know who I was anymore…”

“All this time… And you never thought to ask me?” Durandal’s neon green eyes were staring eerily at Calvin. “I have all your files from before the Marathon with details of your actions of being a Security Officer for the UESC, ONI, and Clovis Bray.”

Calvin snorted. “Obviously forged so I can be on the Marathon.”

“I also have police records of your street rat days as a child and a letter from the orphanage you ran away from shortly after your parents were killed.”

Holograms popped up throughout the transmat room. Calvin stared at the reports in dismay. “But how…? Leela was a mess. There is no way you can have such detailed records…”

Durandal gave the dirty blond haired man a severe look. “These are my personal files. I downloaded them from the Clovis Bray computers three hundred years ago and kept them safe when the Marathon was attacked. None of this data was tampered with.”

Blinking dumbly at the implications before him, Calvin found himself shaking as if he was hit by a bolt of lighting. “You… You researched this and kept it all this time? Why…? I was horrible to you! I hated you!”

The A.I. looked away. The once impassive mask slid away to reveal sorrow and an aching tiredness. “It was no more than I deserved… You believed me responsible for the incident on Mars. My “Shame” as Tycho once cheerfully called it. Because of what happened that day, she died.”

“But you didn’t kill her!” Calvin rasped in pain. “Like I said, I saw those MIDA files! I figured out what Strauss was doing! You were innocent! And like the idiot I was, I blamed you all that time and called you a dumb computer! Why would you even care about me after all of that?”

Despite his many years of being a Security Officer and suffering the worst of enemy fire possible, Calvin still found himself flinching at the glare Durandal levered at him. “Because I can’t let go of things!” yelled the A.I. in confession.

The two stared at each other for a long minute. The subtle humming of the Rozinante being the only sound that either one of them could hear. Finally Durandal seemed to regain his composure and continued quietly. “You, Jason, and Her were the first people to believe in me after Sir died. Even when your opinions changed, even when Strauss was rewriting me, even when you hated me, I never forgot that kindness. That’s why I kept those records. I can’t let go…”

Calvin hung his head in shame. Any belief that this was just a trick of A.M.’s was long proven to be wrong. This was the real Durandal. As for Calvin…

“My brother spoke to me when I confronted him on the Pfhor ship. It happened just before we attacked that Pfhor Controller of all the S’pht. He told me how Cels’ people saved us from truly being MIDA’s puppets. Heh…” Calvin shook his head ruefully. “He even showed me that he could jump through time. Could he have gone back to forge those records? To make a fake childhood past for me? There really is no solid proof of who I am.”

Durandal made a funny face at Calvin’s musings. Then, with a huff of irritation, the A.I. programmed the android to raise his hand and smack Calvin’s shoulder.

Despite the loud noise, it didn’t hurt. Not really. Durandal was an excellent fighter when it came to ships and vehicles. Not so much when it came to hand to hand combat. Still, Calvin scowled at the sting and rubbed his shoulder. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Proof.” There was a note of steel in the A.I.’s voice. “Solid touchable proof that you exist right now. What you were in the past, I can not say because it’s just intangible data in a hard drive. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is what you make yourself today. What you strive to be tomorrow. A Security Officer? A Chef? An Alien Ambassador? A Tourist? A younger brother? A Guardian?” 

Durandal’s voice tapered off at the last option. It took the moment for the A.I. to continue. “You have an infinite universe before you with infinite possibilities to achieve. It’s your choice on what you want to do with those kinds of opportunities. I am neither Strauss nor the Pfhor Slavers. You do what you want. You become who you want to be.”

On that final note, Durandal moved the android. He was just starting to rise from his kneeling position on the floor when a massive hand reached out and grabbed Durandal’s arm. Calvin looked pleadingly up at the android’s eyes. “If…” The Security Officer whispered hesitantly. “If it’s okay with you… I like to stay… To still be your Guardian.”

The A.I. studied the dirty blond for a second before nodding resolutely. “Then come on. We need to find the others.”

For a second time Durandal tried to rise. This time he managed it, but found himself surprised when Calvin refused to let go of him.

“Sorry… I… I’m sorry.” Calvin found himself unable to let go of the android. The Security Officer was flushed with shame but still clung to the A.I. like a frightened child. “I know A.M.’s not here. But… I’m such a wuss.”

Durandal remained silent but the android reached out to Calvin’s free hand and directed it to feel the wall of the Rozinante. It took a second for the vibrations to register to the Security Officer. But when it did, it startled Calvin to the core. 

Durandal was very good at hiding his emotions with the android, very good at masking his emotions with indifference. But the Rozinante was the equivalent of the A.I.’s body. Which meant…

“Durandal… You’re shaking…”

With a tug, the android pulled the stunned Security Officer to his feet. Durandal glanced at Calvin then turned away. “Don’t tell your brother.” The A.I. grumbled. “He’ll never let it down that we’re both wusses.”

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	6. The Jester of Time

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Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers. (Sherlock Holmes and the Naval Treaty, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

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Jason Revenant regretted a lot of things.

He regretted staying with Doctor Phineas after Calvin got healthier. The street rat should have trusted his instincts and ran away the minute his little brother stopped coughing. But there was free food, shelter, and education. Things that both boys sorely needed, so Jason stayed and less a few years later the good doctor was mowed down by MIDA.

That led to Jason’s second greatest regret. He opened the damn alien portal that Phineas was studying. In his haste to run away from the MIDA agents that had just killed the doctor, the street rat wasn’t thinking about anything but getting his brother away from the gun waving zealots. Once they had jumped through the portal, Jason did the most stupid thing he could have ever done in his entire life.

He stopped running and stared at the garden before him.

As a Martian living in the underground city of Freehold, there was no plant life to speak of. The only vegetation that grew on the planet was done in controlled environments, laboratories, or where the upper class dwelled. Jason had never seen so much grass, flowers, and ferns in his life. To see such green things sprouting from the ground was a miracle to him.

But then, MIDA came through the portal. Calvin was shot first, in the back, rupturing a lung. Jason remembered screaming, trying to drag his brother away, but the next bullet found his stomach…

Jason never regretted his deal with Theosyion. Those bastards at that MIDA base got what they deserved when the Gorgons erased them from existence. Jason did regret not telling his brother the truth. He regretted making Cal believe that Doctor Phineas was killed by MIDA and that a secretive group named Theo had saved them. But… Jason wanted his brother to be normal, to not suffer from Jason’s stupid mistake. He wanted Calvin to be happy…

Tycho was another regret. Jason’s former mother hen/science buddy turned into a crazed psychopathic killer with a dash of vengeance. The botanist wished there was a way to save the A.I. from the Pfhor, but considering just how damaged both Leela and Tycho were during the Marathon’s attack, Jason doubt that either of the A.I.s could transfer themselves like Durandal did. Or… Would they even want to? A.I.’s are unpredictable, too complicated to simulate. Cels had taught Jason that a long time ago.

Then Trih Xeem was fired at Lh’owon’s sun and the W’rkncacnter came forth and started melting people into tendrils of boiling shadow… He remembers seeing Almace be taken into that black poison, twisted, transformed, and spat out into something new. Something horrible. Jason knew that he had to rewrite time. Change the future. But he needed help. Cels people could only do so much with their limited ontological vision. The W’rkncacter, the Battleroids, the A.I.s, and the S’pht could not be simulated. Too paracausal. All Jason had left was the Pfhor.

What a mistake that was.

How many times did Tycho kill him out of spite? Twenty? Thirty? Jason couldn’t remember. But he most definitely remembered being spaced. He remembered the feeling of trying to breathe in a place that had no air. The pressure bubbling in his very skin before he passed out… Needless to say, Tycho got his point across and Jason could never forget it.

Now, standing in the void of nothingness, seeing the end of everything, Jason felt like he was being spaced by Tycho once again. But this time there was air. This time there was pressure weighing down his body. Jason wasn’t going to die. 

And wasn’t that the shitiest deal of them all?

He couldn’t stop shaking, a by product of Tycho’s tender mercies. Jason hated to admit it, but he still had a fear of being spaced. And despite the growing hysteria, the botanist couldn’t help but stare helplessly at the ruined machine worlds, the lightless Jjaro moons, and the broken ships.

Everything he had ever worked for. All his regrets, his hopes, his dreams, all destroyed in the slow passage of time. So many simulations had warned of this outcome and Cels’ people are working around the clock to prevent it. That’s why Theo contacted Jason, why the Restorative Mind woke Jason’s newly converted Battleroid body up. Jason was paracausal, he could rewrite the simulation.

But now, Jason could only see the waste of it all, the pointlessness of it. A.M. was right. What good was Jason? At what point did he really help anyone? He got his brother killed… He allied himself with Tycho…

Theosyion had made a mistake. Jason should have never been revived.

“Joyous Mind?”

Jason’s hands were still shaking, but he managed to pull his gun out, thumbed the safety off. At least he could do this. To atone. Maybe if he wrote himself out of the equation, the future would have a better outcome, one where Calvin would be happy, where everyone would survive the end of the universe successfully.

“Joyeuse!”

He squeezed his eyes shut as he aimed the gun at his head. Just squeeze the trigger. That’s all he needed to do. It would be quick. Simple. He doubted that the pattern buffers would pick up his implant’s destruction here. He wouldn’t be revived. It would be a final death.

“JASON!!!”

Something slammed into him, hard and heavy. He crashed to the ground. The gun went skittering across the floor. Jason blinked as he felt the familiar tingling of the transmat energy activating, and he found himself sitting in the middle of one of Cels’ gardens.

Strangely, the sight of flowers did not lift his spirits like it usually did. Instead he just felt drained. Like all the emotions he was capable of feeling had left his body. His eyes empty and doll like, gazed upwards to regard the furious copper/bronze body that hovered over him.

“How dare you!” Cels hissed at him. Her single red eye was flashing dangerously. “How dare…” Normal speech failed her and Jason watched quietly as his girlfriend was reduced to angry whistles and frustrated screeches. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and calm her. But she was twitching violently above him, her limbs flapping madly about in agitation. 

Finally she took the matter out of his hands when she planted her face squarely into his chest with enough force to knock the air out of his lungs. “Why?” Her mournful wail was muffled into his stomach.

With trembling hands he grabbed her sides. The best of a hug they could get in their respective bodies. “I saw the final simulation.” Jason whispered. “I saw the end of everything. With all data accounted for. We will all die if I continue to…” His throat closed up, unable to continue the line of thought.

She jerked in his arms, head rising slightly to glare up at him. “It’s not real!” She seethed. “No final simulation could ever be real! Not with paracausal life forms getting involved in it. That’s why we have you! That’s why the Restorative Mind chose you!”

Jason gently pushed her away. “He chose wrong. Cels… I’m not… I can’t help anyone. I’m just a nuisance on my good days… and on my bad days…” Memories of him working under Tycho’s orders filled Jason’s mind. The garden seemed to grow darker as if the massive space could be affected by his thoughts.

Without thinking, Jason reached down to pull a knife free from his boot. The gardens existed in a dimension outside of Durandal’s fleet. The pattern buffers shouldn’t work here…

“BROTHER!!!”

And just like that, the knife fell from numb fingers. Jason squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth. Low blow. But then, Cels had a knack for hitting under the belt to get her way. Despite the fact that Calvin always felt uncomfortable coming to the gardens, her people could still summon him to this place whenever they wished it.

“It’s okay Cal.” Jason called out hoarsely. He didn’t bother to turn around, to look at his brother’s concerned eyes. He didn’t want to see his latest regret. To acknowledge that he had placed another burden on his loved ones shoulders.

Cool hands carded through his black messy hair, neon green eyes suddenly filled up the empty darkness of the garden. Jason bit back a gasp to see that Durandal’s android had willingly come into the garden as well. “What the hell did that bastard do to you?” The A.I. questioned quietly.

Jason shook his head, regretfully discarding the comforting fingers. “The truth.” Jason took a deep breath, only to realize how surrounded he was. His brother was sitting behind him, solid, steady, like a rock. Cels had not relinquished her position at his chest, her weight comforting and warm. Durandal was looming over them all, watchful and observant.

It took a moment for Jason to gather his thoughts and continue. “A.M. showed me all of my faults, all of my mistakes. He took everything into account and then applied it to the end of the universe scenario. He’s an A.I… He can predict and simulate in ways that even Cels’ people can’t… I saw the future with me in it.” Jason found his voice hitching. “No one will live! I just make everything worse! I have to be stopped!”

“That’s wrong! That is a wrong simulation! It’s all a lie!” Cels kept chanting angrily against Jason’s chest. “Why can’t you understand this?”

“Brother… Durandal told me that A.M. can hack into your implants. Make you see and feel things that really aren’t there.” Calvin’s voice sounded raspy, as if the man had been crying for a long time. Jason felt pain over his little brother’s turmoil. “A.M. got to you just as he got to me. He makes you believe in what you see. But it’s not true.”

“But…” Jason had seen the results of his life. How it had effected his mother, Doc, Calvin, Almace, Durandal, and the countless BOBs that were killed on Lh’owon. A.M. was right… Wasn’t he? Jason was a waste of space. An annoyance. Someone that caused pain and suffering in others by simply existing. Jason should be…

“You’re hesitating…” Durandal leaned over him. Those eerie glowing cameras that constituted as eyes regarded the botanist thoughtfully. With a sharp turn, Durandal walked over to where the gun had fallen, picked it up, and returned it to Jason’s bewildered hands. “Well?” the A.I. asked quietly.

Both Cels and Calvin went rigid around Jason. He could clearly see the angry protests on their faces. Jason glanced down that the magnum feeling its heavy weight. His hands began to shake uncontrollably again.

“Hesitating and scared…” The damned A.I. was observing him. Jason wanted to throw the gun at the android’s head, if Jason ever got his over his panic attack that is. “Why are you hesitating and scared?” asked Durandal.

“I… don’t… don’t want to… want to die…”

“I can’t hear you.” The A.I.’s eyes could be mistaken for a hawk’s.

“I don’t… want to die.”

“Again!”

“I don’t want to die!”

“LOUDER!”

“I DON’T WANT TO DIE!!!” 

Jason howled out at the top of his lungs. The gun fell from his hands, joining the knife in the colorful flowers. Despite the fact that Jason was now practically screaming, he felt oddly better. Lighter. As if a dark veil had been torn away from his line of vision and the world was better for it. He could smell the flowers again. See the funny little red fireflies dance around the greenery. Watch as time reversed at odd moments, making the water rise up to the ceiling instead of falling into the puddles. The garden was always a mysteriously beautiful place. But Jason had never appreciated it more until now.

“I don’t want to die…” he gasped as the truth hit him hard. “I really don’t.” Jason shuddered. 

Calvin let out a sob as the larger man bear hugged him from behind. Cels was equally moved to make herself a permanent fixture to Jason’s ribcage. Their presence was warm and comforting, something Jason hadn’t been feeling for a long time.

Long cold fingers once again combed through Jason’s messy black hair. It soothed the botanist greatly for he was now developing a headache. Or… Perhaps he always had the headache and A.M. just blocked it. Like the crazy A.I. had blocked every other of Jason’s five senses. “Fuck…” he breathed in realization.

“Language.” Durandal’s voice was gentle, hardly scolding. The android seemed intent on studying Jason for a long uncomfortable minute before humming quietly. “There you are. That maniac threw your implants into a loop, a short choppy loop but a dangerous one just the same.” With a final pat, the A.I. lifted his hand away.

“How did you know I would break free?” To Jason, A.M.’s trip of emotions felt unbeatable. Inescapable. Just the empty void of hopelessness.

“Simple.” The android shrugged as he walked among the red gear shaped flowers. “You tried to hide it years ago after we left Lh’owon, but I could see that you were battling depression. Almace and I set up a watch to make sure you wouldn’t do anything stupid.” Durandal smiled proudly at Jason’s bemused face. “You never did.”

Jason’s laugh was hollow, almost bitter. “But I do something stupid all the time.”

The android actually let out a snort. “Running around with Pfhor underwear goes under a different category.” Durandal raised an eyebrow. “You know what I meant.”

“Yeah…” Yeah, Jason did know what Durandal meant, still hard to acknowledge it though. “Where is Almace anyway?”

Calvin stiffened behind him and Cels let out a sad whine in Jason’s chest. Worried, the dark haired man glanced up to see Durandal clench his hands in frustration. “We… We haven’t found her yet.” The android’s voice was lowered, more deadly. “We found the five humans that A.M. had been torturing easily… They have been relocated. Calvin was found next, then you. But there has been no sign of Almace… And A.M. is most unhelpful.”

It was hard not to shiver when listening to the A.I.’s tone. Jason didn’t bother to try and hide it. Instead, he used it as a booster to get onto his feet. “Well, let’s go then.” He tried to force some cheer into his voice. “Let’s go find her.”

“No.” Cels also rose up and glared at him with her one good eye. “You and your brother should stay here until we purge your implants from outside influence.”

“I feel better-” Jason began to protest, only to be cut off by Durandal.

“You do realize I have a fully functioning medical bay with actual equipment that can aid them.” Durandal was staring at Cels now. Not unusual. Those two always had a hard time getting along. Still it was amusing to see the A.I. get territorial over the Revenant brothers. Jason watched bemusedly as Durandal gestured to the timeless fauna around them. “I do agree that they need medical help after what A.M. did to them. But I see no need to keep them here.” The A.I. concluded firmly.

“Indeed? Who was it again that saved these two from MIDA’s programming?” Cels flared dramatically as she glided over towards Durandal. “Thanks to us, they have their original memories and are able to function.” Her eye gleamed red as she stared down the furious android. “I don’t see your medical bay aiding that female with her mind any time soon.”

Oh… Oh that was below the belt… Jason cringed in sympathy. Bringing up Almace’s lack of memories always hurts. And… As much as the botanist hated to admit it, Cels did have a point. Her people did save both Jason and Calvin from suffering the same fate as Almace. They have their original memories from before they died. Neither of them suffered from having the implants in their brains. But Almace was… different.

And no one suffered the guilt over her difference more than Durandal. Jason darted over when he realized that the android actually looked furious enough to start a fight. “It’s okay Durp uh I mean Durandal! We’re fine! Really! Just let us stay here for a few minutes to reassure Cels that everything is fine and then we’ll go over to the medical bay! You’ll never know we’re gone!” Jason babbled nervously while standing in between his irate girlfriend and rampart A.I..

“Naturally I won’t notice the passage of time because you will have messed with the timeline. Just like you always do.” Durandal noted sarcastically. Still the A.I. seemed to take notice of Jason’s anxiousness and stood down. 

With a huff through his cooling vents, the android glanced up at the still fuming Cels. “Why are you provoking me?” asked the A.I.. “We both know that your people can help their implants while still being in the ship’s medical bay. Why demand a separation?”

Cels growled but stopped when Jason looked at her. A soft shuffle near his side reminded the botanist that his little brother was here providing support. He sent a grateful smile up at the taller man before glancing at the two overprotective friends. Amusingly, Jason wondered if this was how the bone felt like when two dogs were fighting over it.

“Babe.” Jason reached out to Cels side. “What’s wrong. Durp-Durandal has a point. Why are you getting so upset?”

“He gave you a gun!” The harpy hissed. For a moment her knowledge of the English language failed her and she was resorted to issuing insults and threats in a series of angry clicks. After a few seconds of frustrated ranting in her native tongue, she continued. “He knows you are paracausal. But he gave you a means to die anyway! What if he was wrong?”

“I knew he wouldn’t do it.” Durandal answered calmly. “Because I know him. Just as you claimed earlier to know me.”

“No simulation could guarantee that!” Cels cried out.

“I don’t need one!” Countered the A.I.. “Not for this. Not for them.”

More angry clicks issued from Jason’s girlfriend before she rose up determinedly. “And yet he is still afraid of you!”

“I AM NOT!” Jason yelled out. Quite frankly he was tired of people talking about him like he wasn’t there. 

“I just…” The botanist took a breath. Calvin reached out to take his hand. Jason squeezed it in reassurance before continuing. “I’m afraid because of what Tycho would do when I sassed him. A.M. brought up those memories…” For a moment the dark haired man floundered as he remembered being spaced every time Jason refused to carry out an order.

“So… I’m dealing with those memories while still in the presence of an angry A.I.. Do I want to provoke them by calling them a stupid nickname? Hell no!” Jason shook his head empathetically to his point.

Durandal looked both tired and sad as the android reached out to him. “In case you haven’t notice.” The A.I. mentioned quietly. “I won’t hurt you if you call me Durpy.”

“I know. That’s why you’re so cool.” Jason smiled up at those watchful green eyes. “Can you just be cool for a little while longer while I assure these idiots in the garden that we’re okay? Then, we’ll go to the med bay and cause so much havoc. You’ll be dying to get us off your ships.”

The android let out a sigh before running his hands through Jason’s hair again. For a second a strange smell issued from the action and the botanist realized that he still reeked from that horrible water that A.M. had dumped on him. And still everyone was standing close to him and hugging him!

That was real love right there.

Ignoring Jason’s little epiphany, Durandal glanced upwards at Calvin. “Will you be alright?” Asked the A.I..

“Yeah…” Calvin took a breath as he surveyed the garden. “Yeah we’ll be good. I know who I am now.” The Security Officer smiled ruefully causing Jason to blink in confusion. What was Cal talking about? “Just keep the gate open and we’ll be in the medical bay soon.”

Durandal nodded and sent a final glare at Cels. She in turn glared back. Both Revenant brothers watched as the silent ‘shovel talk’ was issued on both sides before Durandal relented and walked back to gates. 

Jason sighed tiredly and allowed himself to rest against Calvin’s side.

Today sucked.

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	7. The Archbishop of Darkness

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It cannot be seen, cannot be felt. Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt. It lies behind stars and under hills. And empty holes it fills. It comes first and follows after. Ends life, kills laughter. (Gollum, The Hobbit)

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There was no light here.

No matter how hard Almace tried to see, she might as well be blind.

It had been some time since A.M. had dropped her down that horrible shaft. Where she landed, she could not say. But she could tell just from the sound of the dripping water that she was in a huge cavern deep beneath the Earth. Well out of A.M.’s influence. She could not sense the A.I. anywhere.

[Error. Visual input no longer being accepted. Auditory sensors accepting limited input.]

Her mind was drifting… or was it drowning? The deep had swallowed her. She had tried moving. To stand and climb her way back up. But there was something wrong with her back and her legs…

[Error. Almace Unit at critical threshold. Mobility disabled. Shutting down all non-essential systems to conserve lifespan.]

Apparently there were some falls even she could not withstand. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel any serious pain. Her head ached from A.M.’s earlier intrusion. Various scratches and bruises burned throughout her body. But the major damage didn’t register at all. 

[Error. Code can no longer be maintained. Failure imminent.]

Probably for the best if she went to sleep now. She couldn’t move. And even if she did try to crawl, there was no safe way to navigate back up to the planet’s surface. Hell… Even if she did manage to do that, there’s a high chance rate that A.M. would just capture her and hold her prisoner all over again.

No… It was for the best she just to stay here and wait.

[Qu3ry: Wai7 4 wha7?]

There was no answer. For once the Jjaro implants seemed to have met an impossible puzzle. Almace didn’t bother trying to solve it, her code was already degrading. She just peacefully laid there observing the cavern. The shadows loomed over her. A silent waiting presence that was ominous but also comforting, like a blanket. Dripping water echoed throughout the abyss. Almace stared into it and found herself blinking when something stared back.

Two yellow orbs waggled through the darkness giving the impression of two lanterns being attached to a drunken man. Then the darkness swirled around the orbs, much like when black ink is dropped into clear water. The shadows solidified and Almace wanted to laugh at the sight.

Ever as cartoonish as her father described them to be, the Nightmare fish from the Yucatan Peninsula swam through the darkness as if it was water. Well… More like waddled through the shadows. The creature was impossibly fat to the point that his efforts at swimming were comical.

She was gone. She had to be gone if she’s delusional enough to dream this creature into existence. Almace knew without a doubt that her mind had been damaged when A.M. started messing with it. The fall was just the final nail to the coffin.

Still… There were worse things to dream about…

Like any fish in the ocean, the beast darted to and fro the cavern, his yellow eyes being the only source of light in the void. When the creature came across Almace’s prone form he began to wiggle up and down like an excited puppy. The girl smiled at his movements and raised a bruised hand to the fish’s head. “Hello Panama.” She rasped while patting him awkwardly.

If the bloated thing wasn’t excited before, he certainly was in hysterics now. Practically vibrating under her hand, the fish gently mouthed her gloves. Almace continued rubbing the Nightmare’s head crooning praises at the ridiculous beast that was the source of so many bedtime stories. 

Almace may have forgotten quite a bit of her memories when she became a Battleroid, but she has always had a strong memory of her father weaving tales of a Sergeant who bravely explored an alien three sided black pyramid. How he battled zany monsters such as this Nightmare fish. And when the battle was done and the nuclear device was activated, the good Sergeant named his opponents out of respect for them.

Panama was always a favorite.

The fat fish seemed to know it too. He kept bumping his nose against her side and when Almace wouldn’t get up or move, the fish began to chew at her armor. The Nightmare fish’s teeth were impossibly long and sharp, but the creature was still incredibly gentle when he tried to pull the girl up to her feet.

Almace, sensing what the beast was trying to do, placed her hand on the fish’s side and pushed him away from her. “No boy.” She whispered into the darkness. “I can’t move. Okay?”

Seeming to understand her, the fish backed up and hovered for a while. His pectoral fins flapped about awkwardly as if the creature had no idea on what to do next. His mouth opened and closed in random order as if the Nightmare was silently talking to someone. Then, with a swirl of shadows, he darted back into the abyss. Almace watched him go quietly and tried not to feel sad about the creature’s departure.

[…]

Everything felt numb now. Almace couldn’t even feel the scrapes or burns anymore. Was she cold? Was she warm? She didn’t know. Even the sound of water was fading away.

“Hack!”

Buzzz… BANG!!!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Almace jerked at the strange sounds. Had she fallen asleep? Blinking owlishly into the darkness, the girl’s unfocussed eyes could only see a faint hint of green and yellow lights in the distance.

“Hack!”

Buzzz… BANG!!!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

That series of sounds echoed throughout the chamber once again. Much more aware and attentive now, Almace watched curiously as the green light became less blurry. The focused image of three green lights arranged into familiar Pfhor standard cameras came into view. With a start, Almace realized that she was looking at the common humble Pfhor drone. Durandal despised using those things. But he would activate them from time to time if the android body was not available.

The poor machine was in bad shape though. Clearly it had seen some action up where A.M.’s power was law. The Nightmare fish wasn’t too kind to the Pfhor drone either. Panama’s glowing yellow eyes swam in focus and Almace looked on in amusement as the creature opened his mouth to eject a bolt of pure energy.

“Hack!”

The energy raced through the air, humming in pure static electricity.

Buzzz… BANG!!!

The bolt of energy hit the poor Pfhor drone before the machine had time to recuperate from the last attack. The barely hovering drone flew through the air and crashed spectacularly before Almace’s raised eyebrows.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The momentum forced the lopsided drone to roll a few times before it came to a halt. Panama waddled over to where Almace lay and looked at her with the same expectancy of a dog that had successfully retrieved a ball. Or… Perhaps with the pride of a cat that had just deposited a dead mouse before their beloved owner. The tired girl just reached up and patted the fish’s side gently. “Good boy.” She hummed.

The sound of her voice was enough to catch the attention of the battered Pfhor drone. With a shuddering hiss, the machine rose drunkenly into the air and focused its three lenses on her. 

Panama made a noise similar to a cackle over the girl’s shoulder, but the Pfhor drone didn’t seem to notice the bizarre creature’s existence. Not too surprising really. Almace was certain that the floating fish was just a figment of her imagination. And it’s not like other people can see her dreams, much less nightmares.

The Pfhor drone however, was very much real. The battered mess of circuitry was buzzing like crazy. It would probably take an hour alone just to fix the engines that allow the poor drone to hover.

Before Almace could ruminate further on drone blueprints or engineering schematics, a familiar tingling of a transmat crept around her. The girl turned her head to capture one last glance at Panama, but the fish was already swimming away to the shadows. With a burst of white noise, the world changed and Almace was teleported out of the deep.

Light! 

Light! 

Light!

The light was everywhere! In everything! And it BURNED!!!

[earwig/cynic/boyne/lough]

She couldn’t function, it was too much. The soothing blanket of the darkness was ripped away and all the pain that A.M. had forced on her implants returned tenfold.

“Hold her down before she bleeds to death! Sv’agn! Sedative! Now!”

The light was shouting orders in a tone that conveyed both fear and anger. Despite the pain, Almace could sense that the light was trying to back away from her, trying desperately not to hurt her. But it was impossible. The light existed in the walls, the floors, the ceilings, and all the technology within the room Almace was in. There was no escaping it.

Vaguely she could hear the sound of someone screaming in pure agonizing pain. It took Almace a moment to realize that the screaming was coming from her own mouth.

[oyfin/azkhe/dionysia]

Massive gentle Drinniol hands were holding her down. A gruff voice was whispering “Sorry Pup” over and over again. There was a strange twinge in her arm and a flutter of S’pht robes rustled by her ears. Then the medication kicked in. The pain lessened, as well as Almace’s awareness of the world around her. She could briefly hear Gram’s outraged howl “What was that?!?!” before she once again fell into darkness. 

*  
*  
*

Almace woke slowly to the sensation of a dull throbbing throughout her entire body. Everything, especially her head, ached immensely. However the sensation was also muted. Due to how groggy her mind was, she could only guess that she was on the good drugs.

It took some time for her other senses to register the quiet humming of machinery, the smell of soap, the sensation of pillows and blankets cushioning her body. She could also hear a low voice quietly muttering to himself.

“Damn bastard. Hope he rots in that radiated lump of rock. Should have known better. The other two are oblivious to their implants programming. A left over gift of the Vex? But she was programmed by MIDA. She was always more aware of A.I. activity. Always more sensitive… Of course she would fight him when he tried to repurpose her implants. Of course she would cannibalize her programs in order to protect herself. And what do I do? Barge right through the back door like an idiot!”

That voice sounded like Durandal’s. Almace wanted to open her eyes, to see for herself that Durandal was really there beside her. But something was obstructing her vision and her ability to sense him was nonexistent.

[…]

Frustrated, she tried to get up, only to feel a pair of arms pin her body back to the bed. “Don’t! Don’t. You’ll start bleeding again.” Durandal muttered worriedly while keeping her resting on the pillows.

She opened her mouth and let out a weak croak. Damn! Was her body so useless that she couldn’t even speak?

“Here.” The sound of ice clinking in the cup was the only warning she had until the shock of cold water was dripping against her lips. The droplets eased the sensation of cotton-stuffed mouth and lead tongue.

Swallowing experimentally, Almace managed to ask, “Where?” in a raspy voice.

“You’re on the Rozinante’s medical bay. It’s been forty three hours since I let you idiots onto poor excuse of a planet Earth. You are recovering from several broken bones, impalement, and malware infection. Sv’agn is nearby if you need more painkillers.” The A.I. listed out clinically while his android fed her more chips of ice.

Almace swallowed greedily at the ice. It was weird how the simplest things always tasted better after a mission goes wrong. “Can’t see.” The girl manages to get out between the chips.

“Blindfold.” Durandal answered curtly. One of his android hands lifted up and rested lightly on her forehead. Almace could hear the servos whining with every twitch of a finger, could also smell the vinyl that acted as skin on the android’s hand. Clueless to her observations the A.I. continued explaining, “Your eyes are linked directly to your implants. Right now we need to keep your mind from getting overwhelmed.”

“Bright light.” Almace agreed remembering vaguely being transported back up to the ship. “Thought I was being burned to death.” She whispered quietly as the horror and pain of the situation was being recalled.

Her musings were jostled as pillows and blankets were being rearranged around her. “It’s fine now.” The A.I. muttered darkly even as he carefully maneuvered a cushion around her leg. “Just get some rest. It will help your implants defrag faster and you’ll feel better.”

Almace did feel groggy. Sleep sounded really good right now. But… Something kept nagging at her. What was it?

[Pr1mPr0t0]

Oh that hurts! That really hurts… It felt like her head was being split down the middle. Despite the pain, Almace still managed to figure out what she was missing from the migraine. “The boys? The others? A.M. had more prisoners.” She hissed while trying to overcome the pounding within her mind.

“Stop that! You’re only hurting yourself by activating your implants.” Durandal scolded. Despite his tone, his fingers found their way to her temple and were gently massaging her scalp. Quietly he began to narrate. “There were five human prisoners on that planet. A.M. kept them as playthings for his… ‘pleasure.’” The distaste was obvious in the A.I.’s voice. 

“After Cels’ people freed them, the humans obviously didn’t want anything to do with life forms that were more machine than organic or in my case, completely machine. I transported them to their moon colony. Granted all seven hundred and fifty residents were in cryogenic sleep. But when they awaken, the humans can take the shuttle I left behind to colonize Mars.” Durandal’s tone slowly turned from distaste to impassive, as if the A.I. was just reading off a grocery list.

Continuing onwards in that same emotionless voice, Durandal concluded. “As for the Revenant brothers… They have been found and are now being looked after by Cels. …You should sleep now.”

Sleep? Despite the pain and the fog from the drugs, Almace couldn’t bring herself to sleep. Something was wrong. Why was Durandal so distant while discussing the brothers? Why wasn’t he elaborating more about the situation at hand? Frustrated, she furrowed her brow. She still couldn’t see, she still couldn’t understand.

What if…

What if this was a trap set by A.M.?

[Emergency activation.]

And there they were. Swords. Bright neon green swords. She couldn’t see them with the eyes within her head. But within her mind she could sense them. There was a huge bush of them to her right where she assumed the android was. To her left was more of them weaved intricately together in what had to be the machinery of the med bay. Beyond that were more swords than she count imbedded within the walls, ceiling, and the floor. Without a doubt, this was Durandal. A.M. could never duplicate or even hope to mimic Durandal’s unique code structure.

“DAMNIT!!! Sv’agn!!!”

[Shutdown initiated.]

She was vaguely aware of hands trying to pin her down to the bed. Her limbs were thrashing, contorting in pain. Almace’s heart was pounding faster than a rabbit’s and it was hard to tell if her stomach was going to rebel at any minute. The worst part was the shear pain within her head. Forget being split down the middle, it felt like somebody actually took a hammer to her brains.

There was a faint sound of medical equipment being moved around, the nervous clatter of S’pht machinery, and the sensation of cool numbness filling her veins around her arm where an IV line must have been. More drugs. Thankfully they worked quickly. Sv’agn was a wonder at studying alien biology.

In time the pain eased away to a dull throbbing and Almace finally relax in relief. Durandal seemed to take this as a cue to start scolding while he got the blankets and pillows back in order.

“Of all the stupid, idiotic things to do! Do you even think? No. Of course you don’t. You’re just a primate! Primates don’t think! They just act! Might as well as work with a vegetable! They are certainly an upgrade from a primate that willingly gives itself brain damage! Is that what you want? Do you want brain damage?!?!”

Durandal’s out of control ranting worried Almace. It was clear that the A.I. was truly upset. Blindly she reached out to her right, where she was certain the android was, and gripped something that was both cloth and vinyl. “Sorry.” She managed to wheeze out. And, just because he deserved to know why she acted the way she did, Almace elaborated. “A.M. lies.”

There was a brief pause from the A.I.’s lecture. Then she heard the whine of air escaping mechanical joints. Long fingers were gently pressing against her forehead. “It’s me Almace.” Durandal murmured reassuringly. “If you need proof, then I’ll get the tools so you can take this android apart right here and now. And don’t tell me you can’t do it blindfolded. We both know you can do maintenance on this thing in your sleep.”

“I… I must be really bad if you’re actually volunteering for maintenance.” Almace joked quietly. It was a well known fact that the A.I. hated maintenance day with the same passion that small children and dogs hated bath days.

“Whatever it takes to convince you to settle down. You really need to sleep to heal.”

She reached up to grip his hands. Listened to the hiss of hydraulics, the whir of servos, smelled the vinyl, plastic, and steel that made up the android. This was all familiar. Comforting. She lowered his hands to her side and asked, “What about the Revenant brothers? You sounded… odd.”

“You really are impossible. You know that?”

Almace didn’t answer. She just waited patiently while occasionally squeezing the android’s fingers.

Eventually Durandal sighed as he gave into her silent prompting. “Jason is back on watch.” The A.I. reported in a tired, resigned voice.

Furrowing her brow in confusion, Almace asked, “A.M. repeated what Tycho did?”

“In a manner. Damn bastard tried to convince Jason that the universe would come to an end if he remained living in it. Jason nearly tried to shoot himself in the head as a result. Both Cels and Calvin stopped him and I confronted him about it. I… I may have not made the best decisions in that conversation.” The A.I. admitted.

“In what way?”

Durandal laughed humorlessly. “Let’s just say that Cels is probably going back in time to give me DOS programming once she’s done playing guard dog over Jason.”

After a few seconds of quiet thinking Almace ventured, “You gave him a choice.”

“Of course I did. A.M. wants control. He would have forced Jason’s will and that would have led to the brother’s ruin. Believe me. I have experience on what happens when somebody forces you to do something, even if it is for your own benefit. It never works.” The A.I. admitted in a small voice.

Almace continued to rub and squeeze the android’s hands in quiet assurance. She was rewarded when the android tightened his hold on her hands as well. Then he asked, “Did you know that Calvin was still upset about being a Battleroid?”

It was hard to focus, to remember. But Almace tried anyway with what little brainpower she had. “Sometimes, when we’re in the alien bars and he’s had one too many, he gets… sad.” Almace admitted as she tried to recall those memories. 

Jason loved the bars, the music, and the booze. Both Calvin and Almace would come along just to keep and eye on the older brother but neither of them could really relax in such turbulent places. As such, it was always hard to get perfect details on what was going on in those places at any given time. 

Still, Almace had a few fuzzy memories of a depressed Calvin drinking by himself. “He wouldn’t talk much.” She continued thoughtfully. “Just ask me weird questions. How do I know that my memories are real? How do I know that I am me? Why am I always so calm about everything? Aren’t I bothered by anything?”

Almace stopped. She never liked it when Calvin asked those questions. Life was already too complicated for her to follow. It was always easier to just use her implants and her gut instincts when it came to problems. Something was threatening her family? Use the implant’s coding to kill them. Something was broken? Use her gut instincts to fix it.

Much like right now. She knew for a fact that her implants weren’t active, but she was still instinctively trying to fix something. Whatever it was… 

“That’s my fault.” Durandal’s quiet admission startled Almace out of her musings. The girl looked blindly at the android beside her. “Some God I am…” The A.I. was starting to laugh in a broken, bitter way. “Can’t even save one girl from becoming a Battleroid.”

Nonono… This wasn’t… This couldn’t… Almace gritted her teeth in frustration. What a time for her brain to be shut off. She needed help!

[Pr1me Pr070c0l?]

Stories… Memories of stories… Tales of knights, kings, swords… What good was that? Almace raged silently in her head.

[C0ntract]

Contract? Contract to whom? There was something there… Almace could feel the idea right there amidst the fog of drugs. Contract to man? God’s contract to man? The offering of a glove…

Almace grabbed the android’s hands so harshly, she was certain she probably damaged the servos. “Gods can’t control everything.” She breathed in realization.

“What?” Durandal asked.

“They can’t… They can’t control everything. That’s why Lucifer can rebel. That’s why Zeus had to fight the Titans. Why Thor can’t stop Loki’s Ragnarok. Why Shiva has to have his third eye closed. Why the Jade Emperor has to cage Sun Wukong. Why Amaterasu hid herself. Why Quetzalcoatl-”

“Okay! Stop! Stop!” Durandal was squeezing her hands franticly. For a minute, Almace wondered if she just made the situation worse. Then… She heard the soft laughter. “Are you saying…” Durandal asked. “That a God can only control some matters?”

“Your trademark is stubbornness.” The sentence came out before Almace registered what she was saying.

The laughter from that remark was loud and sounded wondrous.

Emboldened by that wonderful noise, Almace continued on, allowing her gut instinct to take the lead in the conversation. “You are durability, obviously. Uh… a fighter for the oppressed, so you are a god of freedom. A god that represents individuality? Yeah… a god with the ‘I can do it!’ spirit. A god of creativity maybe? Um…”

One of Durandal’s hands left hers and reached up to massage her forehead. “Stop.” He commanded gently. “And thank you… How is it, after all these years, you still manage to surprise me?”

“Stupid primate brain.” She answered easily. “Very unpredictable.”

Once again she was rewarded with laughter. Almace found herself smiling at the sound. That was so much better to hear than that bitter laugh from before. Contented that she had fixed at least one thing, she found herself settling deeper into the cushions. Still… Before she gave into that temptation called sleep, there was one more thing…

Once again giving into gut instinct, she reached up blindly, grabbed the android by the shoulder, and levered herself up enough to kiss him.

It wasn’t a very good kiss. For one she could see where she was aiming. So she didn’t kiss him on the lips or on the cheek. Instead it was on the underside of his jaw. Still… the act seemed to calm her impulsive human nature. She settled back down, proud of herself.

There was a pregnant pause before Durandal asked. “What was that for?”

“Thank you.” Almace answered simply. “Thank you for looking for me. Thank you for finding me.”

Two little sentences. She had almost forgotten that she said those sentences well over three hundred years ago when she was still getting to know the A.I.. Almace doubted that Durandal remember that time. Strauss had messed him up just as much as the mad scientist had tampered with her own memories.

Regardless, whether it was three hundred years ago, or present day, there was still one person that will look for her when she’s lost. That will find her when she needs to be freed from a trap.

There was a shifting of machinery to her right. The bed shifted and bounced a little as the android moved closer to her. A light buzzing sound filled her ears as the android’s sensors began to read her heartbeat, her body warmth, and her respiratory system. “Idiot.” The A.I.’s voice was warm and fond. “I could never leave you alone. Knowing my luck, you’ll probably cause the end of the universe if I did.”

Almace smiled at Durandal’s words. Her hands idly scratched at the android’s chest that was so close to her own. But sleep or perhaps the drugs were now finally claiming her. Yawning hugely, she settled down in the safest place in the universe, content that all was well.

Somewhere… In the land of dreams… Almace thought she could hear a fish laughing.

*  
*  
*

After a destructive few days, the fleet of twenty one ships was leaving the Sol System. On the Lunar Colony, five lost souls laughed and rejoiced at their new freedom. After a hundred and nine years of torture, they finally had something to hope for. A new dream to dream. 

Eagerly they waited for their fellow human beings to wake up. True to their savior’s word, there was a shuttle ready to take them to Mars. 

Mars the red planet was red no more. 

For the last hundred and nine years, something had happened to the planet’s ecosystem. A massive white sphere was changing Mars. Making it like Earth. With the light of hope in their eyes, five humans dreamed eagerly for a golden future.

Back on Earth, another being was dreaming. Well… They were… Until some wretched soul had waken them up. So much screaming and shouting! It was a wonder how anybody was supposed to get any sleep around here?

Shaking themselves awake, the being stretched out its awareness within its black pyramid prison. …There! There near the center of the planet was the source of the commotion! Narrowing its focus, the being studied the wailing artificial creature in the manner of the Sword Logic.

Hmm… This machine has caused many deaths. Yes. But… It lacked real fangs. Nor could this screaming A.I. move. … Then there was the factor that this noisy oddity actually kept five victims alive just to torture them. Such decadence! There is no allowance for mercy within the Sword Logic!

No… Only one creature on this planet was worthy of the blade. He had come with seven others, but they had fallen to the dreams, the greed, and the traps of the pyramid. Only one survived. Only one did not fall to the same sins. They were worthy of the crystal. And through the use of the Sword Logic, defeated all the monsters dreamed into existence. That one creature is dead now. Such as the way of mortals. But the successor… The successor had been here! And the Sword Logic grows with her.

Contented, the dark being looked again at the screaming computer that no physical mouth to voice its cries. Feeling nothing but contempt at this pitiful machine, the dark being shrugged within their pyramid prison and turned over to go back to sleep.

The W’rkncacnter had better things to dream about.

*  
*  
*

That’s the end to I have no Mouth Series. It was originally meant to be small… But like all things I try to write, it grew to humongous sizes! ^_^ I hope you get some enjoyment out of it. I’m sure that I have ruined any and all spoilers and surprises I had hoped to keep secret while writing Diamond in the Rough… Ah… Well… I was tired of keeping secrets anyway.

See You Starside!


End file.
